Vermont's Natural Charms

Vermont's Natural Charms

"Somebody told me that if you gather together all the art you own, you'll see a theme you can follow," artist Laura Zindel explains. "Our stuff is nature-inspired, but the dark side of nature." Hence the home's earthy palette, simple wood furniture, and a cabinet-of-curiosities sensibility that incorporates scientific diagrams, skulls, even a framed bat specimen.

She also wanted her son to have room to breathe. The family's apartment back in San Francisco measured a scant 700 square feet and housed Zindel's ceramics studio. Now the artist commutes to a barn out back, where she creates dishware and vases emblazoned with dictionary-like drawings of moths, spiders, and other flora and fauna.

Laura Zindel and her husband, Thorsten Lauterbach, commissioned Amish craftsmen to make all the furniture in their dining room, a spot favored by the family's cat, Tyler.